or concerned by the news, though of course he would have liked to help Cif,
who was the Mouser's darling.
"I've heard of your ghost," he told her. "All the rest is news. Is
there any particular way in which I can help you now?"
They looked at him rather strangely. He realized his remark had been a
somewhat cold one, so although he was most eager to get by himself again, he
added, "You can call on my men for help if you need it in your search for the
thieves. They're at their dormitory."
"On which you owe me rent," Groniger put in automatically. Fafhrd
graciously ignored that. "Well," he said, "I wish you good luck in your hunt.
Gold is valuable stuff." And with a little bow he turned and continued on his
way. When he'd gone some distance he heard their voices again, but could no
longer make out what they were saying -- which meant their words happily
weren't for him.
He reached the harbor while the violet light was still bright across
the sky and realized with a throb of pleasure that that was one reason he had
been in such a hurry and impatient of all else. The few folk about moved or
stood quietly, unmindful of his coming. The air was still. He crossed to the
dock's verge and scanned searchingly south and southeast to where violet sky
met unruffled gray sea in a long horizon line, with never a cloud or smudge of
haze between.
No sign of a sail or hint of a hull, not one. Mouser and _Seahawk_
remained somewhere in the seaworld beyond.
But there was still time for sign or hint to appear before light
failed. His dreamy gaze wandered to things closer. East rose the smooth salt
cliffs, gray in the twilight. Between them and the low headland to the west,
the harbor was empty. Off in that direction, to the right, _Flotsam_ was
moored close in, while to the left, nearer, was a light wooden pier that would
be taken up when the winter gales arrived and to which a few ship's boats and
other small harbor craft were moored. Among these was _Flotsam_'s small
sailing dory, in which Fafhrd was in the habit of going out alone -- more
training in making do with a hook for a left hand -- and also a narrow,
mastless, shallow craft, little more than a shaped plank, that was new to him.
*.6.*
The violet light was draining away from the sky now and he once more
scanned the southern and southeastern horizon and the long expanse of water
between -- a magical emptiness that drew him powerfully. Still no sign. He
turned away regretfully and there, coming across the dock so as to arrive at
its verge a score of feet from him, where the pier extended into the harbor,
was his silent, tranquil-faced lady of the Sea Wrack. She might have been an
apparition for all the notice the few dock-folk took of her; she almost
brushed a sailor as she passed him by and he never moved. Behind her faint
voices called to her from the town (what were they concerned about -- a hunt
for something? Fafhrd had forgotten) and the shadows came down from the north,
driving out the last violet tones from the heavens. The silent woman had a
pouch at her hip that clinked once faintly while her pale hands drew round her
a silver-glinting bone-white robe that also shadowed her face. And then as she
passed closest to him, she turned her head so that her black-edged green eyes
looked straight into his, and she put her hand into her bosom and drew forth a